I normally don’t post a lot of singer-songwriter stuff here but these two pieces have been in somewhat steady rotation at the old domicile. Rhett Miller used to sing for a much-loved Texas cowpunk band called the Old 97s (yes, named after the Johnny Cash song Wreck of the…). I was lucky enough to see them at the Bowery Ballroom in New York in the late 1990s opening for the Ryan Adams vehicle, Whiskeytown, and they tore down the house, should’ve been the headliners actually. Miller’s got a knack for weaving whiskey-soaked lamentations into righteous rave-ups. If there was ever a genre called country punk, they were it. But so the alt.country movement, such as it was, sort of died off circa turn of the millenium and Mr. Miller has since escaped the alt.country ghetto to fashion himself as a sort of troubadour power-pop figure, culminating in this year’s as eponymous record, his third and by far best solo record. To be honest I’ve not been a fan of his pop stuff, apart from respecting his lyrical chops, but this one surprised me. Anyway, this song, the first one on the record, my wife likes it. And it’s sort of about David Foster Wallace (or at least inspired by the copy of “Infinite Jest” on Miller’s bedside table). Check the lyrics if you don’t believe it. “God give me strength and a good length of rope.”

Rhett Miller - Nobody Says I Love You Anymore

Classic example of a pretty song, in the Tom Waits sense, being about a terrible thing. I can even tolerate the Matthew Sweet-ish inflections on the chorus. As a pop song, subversivity and all, it’s just about perfect.

Emmy the Great - On the Museum Island

Emma-Lee Moss’s from London and she’s only 19. And she writes great songs. This one involves Berlin and a relationship in flux.

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